FP's second annual 100 top global thinkers: Foreign Policy presents a unique portrait of 2010's global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who make them.(Cover story)

1

WARREN BUFFET(AND BILL GATES for stepping up as the world's states falter.

Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway | Omaha, Neb.

Co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation | Seattle

If you were one of the 1,011 billionaires in the world, what would you do with all that money? Famed investor Warren Buffett (net worth: an estimated $47 billion) and Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($54 billion) have an idea: Give at least half of it away.

The two billionaires have been traveling the world--first to China and soon to India, as well as around the United States--on a mission to create a global club of "Great Givers" who will transform philanthropy from a pastime of the wealthy into a calling for everyone who is rich. Since 2006, when Buffett pledged to give 99 percent of his assets away to charity--much of it to Gates's foundation, which spends more than $2 billion yearly on programs to improve public health and development--the two have emerged as an unlikely and formidable pairing of wealthy evangelists, preaching a breathtakingly ambitious new gospel of how capitalist riches can solve global problems. That became clear this year when Gates joined up with Buffett's project to convince the wealthiest elite from Silicon Valley to Shanghai to donate half their wealth, a challenge that, if answered by all America's billionaires, let alone the world's, could bring an estimated $600 billion to needy and deserving causes. So far, 40 billionaires have signed up.

As the world has lost confidence in the ability of countries and institutions like the United Nations to solve global problems, Gates offers an attractive alternative vision: that the business community's relentless drive to innovate can help with our biggest challenges, from malaria to food scarcity to illiteracy. And he has the money to prove it. At a recent conference on HIV/AIDS, Gates pledged more than the government of either Norway or Australia, and almost as much as the entire European Commission. His foundation's funding for research into microbicides--gels that would prevent HIV transmission--helped lead to the first real breakthrough this July, when a candidate gel showed 39 percent effectiveness. Whether it's a green revolution for Africa or a vaccine for malaria, Gates's agenda is now the global agenda--and he and Buffett won't stop until they see it through.

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2

DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN AND ROBERT ZOELLICK for steely vision at a moment of crisis.

IMF managing director | Washington

World Bank president | Washington

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The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are the globe's firefighters--taken for granted until they're desperately needed, as they are now. And their leaders have also done an especially good job explaining how those conflagrations might be prevented next time around.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's IMF has managed to forestall sovereign defaults in Greece, Hungary, Pakistan, and Ukraine without inspiring much resistance--in striking contrast to the near-uprisings that accompanied IMF programs during the late 1990s Asian financial crisis. Strauss-Kahn also put his stamp on geopolitics this year, convincing the Germans to step up during Greece's crisis and later working to forestall an international currency war.

As head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick has stepped into the chaotic aftermath of a harrowing array of unexpected disasters, from the floods in Pakistan to the earthquake in Haiti to the continuing global food crisis, while establishing the bank as a leader in thinking about global trends from combating climate change to democratizing Internet technology.

Both institutions have been especially attuned to the rise of emerging economies. Strauss-Kahn has overseen the redistribution of the IMF'S powerful board seats from developed countries to rising powers. And in April, Zoellick bluntly declared the era of the "Third World" over. Countries like Brazil, China, India, and South Africa aren't developing countries anymore; they're independent "poles of growth." Without Strauss-Kahn and Zoellick at the helm, we might not be using the word "growth" at all.

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ZOELLICK

READING LIST: John Marshall: Definer of a Nation, by Jean

Edward Smith; Quartered Safe Out Here, by George MacDonald Fraser; This Time Is Different, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

BEST IDEA OF 2010: The crisis will be over.

WORST IDEA OF 2010: The crisis is over.

CHINA OR INDIA? Both.

KINDLE OR IPAD? Kindle.

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3

BARACK OBAMA for charting a course through criticism.

President | Washington

Don't count Barack Obama out. Sure, the brainy young American president has had a tough sophomore year, with a stubbornly sluggish economy, worsening conditions in Afghanistan, an electoral backlash at home, and the surprise challenge of more than 4 million barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. His sweeping plans to overhaul immigration and reinvent the way Americans use energy never got off the ground, and he can boast of neither Middle East peace nor mastery over the restive Republicans at home rising up against what they bemoan as the advent of European-style socialism.

But Obama is still arguably the developed world's most popular leader, even if the American public judges him more harshly, and he is slowly but surely inventing a new kind of U.S. leadership to go along with his vision of an America that once again projects its power through the force of its ideas. To Obama has fallen a tough task: the hard work that accompanies the building of a new order to succeed America's unchallenged rule as the lone post-Cold War superpower. But luckily for the world it is a task Obama embraces, if still hesitantly at times. He has put American prestige on the line to speak up for emerging powers still not properly represented in the world's governing bodies, boldly renewed U.S. ties of friendship with the democracies of Asia, and in his ringing address to the U.N. General Assembly in September declared himself ready to "call out those who suppress ideas" and "serve as a voice for those who are voiceless."

Such idealism has not yet come to define Obama's legacy in the world; for all his Wilsonian rhetoric, he remains a cautious incrementalist on most issues. In many ways, he's the most realist of recent U.S. presidents, determined to focus on the terrible challenges, from Afghanistan to climate change, that he's been dealt. The world may yet thank him for it.

4

ZHOU XIAOCHUAN for holding the world's economic fate in his hands.

Governor, People's Bank | China

This August, Internet rumors that Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan had defected sent portfolio managers and currency traders the world over scrambling for cover. Although the rumors were later proved false, they still revealed just how important Zhou has become to global economic stability.

It wasn't the first time Zhou has made waves on his way to becoming the most visible international symbol of China's new assertiveness. Last year, he roiled markets by proposing a new international reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar. This year, he hasn't stopped pressing Washington to recognize that the era when it could dictate the rules of the global economic order is over. Zhou's case was bolstered this August when China surpassed Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, a long-awaited milestone that immediately set market-watchers pondering how long until China takes the top spot from the United States.

Batting away demands that China allow its currency to appreciate, Zhou recently described yuan revaluation as a Western-style fantasy cure, "pills that solve your problem overnight," as opposed to what's needed: a proper Chinese-style treatment of "10 herbs put together ... that solve the problem not overnight, but maybe in one month or two months." It's the kind of line you can get away with when you're sitting on $2.65 trillion in international currency reserves.

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5

BEN BERNANKE for owning the U.S. economy, no matter what it takes.

Chairman, Federal Reserve | Washington

Last year's No. 1 FP Global Thinker might not have dreamed that 2010 could possibly be tougher than 2009. But even after the passage of historic financial regulatory reforms in July that gave the Fed unprecedented power, not to mention his work over the past two years steering the U.S. economy through its worst downturn since the Great Depression, Ben Bernanke still found himself taking shots from lawmakers and pundits alike. An upswing of populist anger, fury over politically difficult moves like the 2009 AIG bailout, and the interminable beat of bad job numbers have kept the Fed chairman in the foxhole.

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But he has not given up. This year, he has raised the Fed's balance sheet to a cool $2.3 trillion (from $850 billion before the crisis), shooting tens of billions of that over to the Treasury to help close the deficit, and pursued the controversial idea of quantitative easing, a high-powered stimulant. The morning after the Republican gains in the midterm elections suggested Congress would be gridlocked for years to come, he took the aggressive, risky step of announcing that the Fed would pump an additional $600 billion into the financial system by 2011, raising the bank's holdings to nearly $3 trillion and, ideally, lowering mortgage prices and the unemployment rate in a way the rest of the government may no longer have the tools to do. Although Bernanke recently admitted that "central bankers alone cannot solve the world's economic problems," his bold moves leave no doubt about who's in charge.

6

CELSO AMORIM for transforming Brazil into a global player.

Foreign minister | Brazil

Celso Amorim wouldn't crack a smile at the old canard that Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be. The wily and urbane Brazilian diplomat, finishing off his second term as foreign minister, has done his utmost to make his country an international powerhouse--right now.

Neither reflexively opposing the United States in the style of Latin America's old left nor slavishly following its lead, Amorim has charted an independent course. He has criticized developed countries as hypocritical and advocated that developing countries take a leading role in combating climate change. This year, he teamed with an unlikely partner, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (No. 7), to cut an eleventh-hour deal designed to dial down the international tension over Iran's nuclear program. Although the initiative succeeded mostly in setting teeth on edge in Western capitals, it also put Brazil on the map.

Under Amorim's guidance, Brazil has enthusiastically embraced the BRIC alliance with Russia, India, and China, which he thinks has the power to "redefine world governance." Brazil aspires to a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council; in the meantime, it has built up its diplomatic corps and boosted its contribution to international peacekeeping missions in places like Haiti. Amorim's tenure under Brazil's larger-than-life retiring president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has proved that it is possible to have, as he recently put it, "a humanist foreign policy, without losing sight of the national interest."

7

AHMET DAVUTOGLU for being the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening.

Foreign minister | Turkey

Ahmet Davutoglu rose to prominence in Turkish academic circles as an advocate for what he called "strategic depth": Turkey, he argued, should use its geographic position and identity as a secular Muslim democracy to build bridges between Europe, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Over the last seven years, Davutoglu has brought his theories out of the classroom and onto the international stage--with some impressive results.

Davutoglu's diplomats have worked to reconcile Iraq's fractious political groups and plan a pipeline that will link the oil fields of the Caucasus and the Arab world with Europe. His ambitious "zero problems with neighbors" policy has attempted to boost Turkey's relations with everyone in the region simultaneously, a task much easier set than accomplished.

Ankara's new independence has raised some eyebrows. After an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla left nine Turks dead this summer, Davutoglu said the attack was "like 9/11 for Turkey." Turkey's warm relationship with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also raised fears that the country is drifting away from the West at a time when its long-held aspiration to join the European Union appears hopelessly stalled.

Still, the foreign minister seems undaunted. "The world expects great things from Turkey," he wrote in an essay for FOREIGN POLICY. Under his watch, Turkey has assumed an international role not matched since a sultan sat in Istanbul's Topkapi Palace.

8

DAVID PETRAEUS for taking a demotion to save a war.

Commanding U.S. general | Afghanistan

George W. Bush and Barack Obama may have their differences, but both turned to the same man when they needed to salvage a war: Gen. David Petraeus, the man who literally wrote the book on how the United States should undertake counterinsurgency. Now, the world is waiting with bated breath to see whether Petraeus's strategy of civilian-centered security, which allowed the United States to achieve a relatively orderly end of combat operations in Iraq, can work in Afghanistan.

Petraeus has already used his new position and his incredible he has won the public's trust like no other battlefield general since Dwight D. Eisenhower--to wield influence from Washington to Kabul. After agreeing to trade down from Centcom to the lower-ranking job in Afghanistan when Obama cashiered Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Petraeus quickly issued new rules governing the use of force by U.S. soldiers and seems to have dissuaded a Florida pastor from burning the Quran by arguing that it would endanger the lives of U.S. troops. In an echo of his success in co-opting Sunni insurgents in Iraq, he also convinced Afghan President Hamid Karzai to accept the creation of local anti-Taliban Afghan militias.

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One person he hasn't entirely co-opted, however, is the U.S. president; the general has all but tattooed on his forehead his skepticism about Obama's July 2011 withdrawal timeline. In a sign of the immense credibility Petraeus enjoys, it is by no means clear which viewpoint would prevail in the battle for public opinion.

READING LIST: Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, by Thomas Barfield; The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, by All Ahmad Jalali and Lester W. Grau; U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth, by Joan Waugh.

WORST IDEA: That I would end up not being able to contact my wife before President Obama announced my new position in a Rose Garden statement.

BEST IDEA: That my wife would nonetheless be characteristically understanding and supportive and that she wouldn't place her cell phone in her purse the next time she puts it on vibrate.

CHINA OR INDIA? Afghanistan.

KINDLE OR IPAD? Kindle.

9

ROBERT GATES for transforming U.S. military might for the 21st century.

Defense secretary | Washington

Robert Gates isn't the first strategist to dwell on the need for the U.S. military to adapt to fight the low-intensity conflicts of the present and future--he's just the most successful. While his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, talked about trimming the military's expensive pet projects, Gates actually delivered: The career intelligence officer has so far convinced the military brass and Congress to cut 31 programs, saving an estimated $330 billion. At the same time, Gates, a lifelong Republican, has become a close advisor to President Barack Obama and enlisted him in a project he defines with breathtaking ambition: reimagining how American power will be wielded in the 21st century. With the United States alone still accounting for an astonishing 44 percent of the world's military expenditures while facing a new age of austerity, it's not just a big idea; it's an urgent necessity.

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But it's hardly Gates's sole brief. Few defense secretaries have had the misfortune of presiding over two failing wars at once, but Gates has managed Iraq and Afghanistan with low-key aplomb even as he has seen not one but two successive Afghan commanders fired. When Obama sat down last fall to make the biggest decision of his presidency--whether to throw tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into the deteriorating Afghan war--Gates, who had helped fund the anti-Soviet jihad as a top CIA official in the 1980s, emerged as a center of gravity, by all accounts, in the ensuing debate. Having seen one Vietnam unfold, he's not anxious to experience another one.

10

ANGELA MERKEL for leading Europe through the recession with Teutonic resolve.

Chancellor | Germany

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In the throes of the financial crisis, when most political leaders were reaching for their copies of Keynes, Angela Merkel was partial to citing a less likely source of wisdom: The famously penny-pinching "Swabian housewife is the model for the world economy," Merkel said in an unsubtle dig at credit-addicted Americans. So when Greece suggested this year that it might need help paying its bills, Merkel wasn't inclined to reach into her pocket.

Merkel's steeliness is tempered by pragmatism, though: Eventually, she conceded that a bailout of Europe's indebted countries was necessary, but made sure that the final trillion-dollar solution was organized at least partly around German principles.

Merkel has taken the same tough approach at home. After conceding the need for stimulus measures in 2008 and 2009, she insisted this year on making progress toward a balanced national budget. Judging from the results, Merkel's frugality seems to have fared well against orthodox deficit spending: Germany enjoyed record growth in the second quarter of 2010, and its unemployment rate is now at its lowest since 1992. Keynes may have some lessons to learn after all from the German hausfrau.

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11

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG AND FEISAL ABDUL RAUF for reminding a divided country that Muslims are Americans too.

Mayor | New York

Imam, Cordoba Initiative | New York

The Jewish mayor of New York City, who ranks as the 10th-wealthiest man in the United States, and the Kuwaiti-born imam, who had previously worked as an industrial-filter salesman, might seem an odd pair. But after Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's plans to construct a 15-story Islamic cultural center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center stirred outrage in the United States, he found a staunch ally in Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg told New Yorkers that the right to construct the center, dubbed the "Ground Zero mosque" by its opponents, was just the sort of religious freedom that was attacked by terrorists on 9/11. "Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure--and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy," said the mayor.

Rauf's critics damn him as a closet Islamist or dismiss him as a salesman whose ambition exceeds his influence. But since 9/11, the imam has made an indisputable contribution to interreligious understanding: He delivered a moving eulogy at the funeral of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by al Qaeda, and continues to work with the U.S. State Department to spread a democratic, pluralistic version of Islam across the globe.

"For many years people have asked, 'Where are the moderate Muslims?'" Rauf mused recently. "But we moderates couldn't get any attention. Now that we've gotten attention, I'm accused of being immoderate!"

12

NOURIEL ROUBINI for seeing the roots of the next crisis in the current one.

Economist, NYU | New York

Being a global economic Cassandra isn't a cheerful job, but someone's got to do it--and Nouriel Roubini acknowledges that he fits the role perfectly. He has even embraced the moniker "Dr. Doom," a name derisively pinned on him before the 2008 crash that showed his pessimism was warranted. And so while everyone's still trying to figure out how to overcome the last financial crisis, Roubini has his sights set firmly on the next one--which, Dr. Doom assures us in his latest book, Crisis Economics, won't be too far off.

Roubini argues that the United States is at serious risk of heading back into a recession, and unlike other talking heads, he puts a number on his prediction, saying there's a 35 to 40 percent chance of the United States hitting the dreaded "double dip." Why? He thinks the root causes of the current malaise have only been covered over and that unhealthy levels of debt are once again piling up around the world--though this time on government accounting ledgers. It's only a matter of time, he says, until we start seeing national bankruptcies--perhaps even a cascade of them across Europe that sparks the dissolution of the euro. If Roubini has one message, it's that crises aren't unforeseeable "black swan" events, but "white swans"--the culmination of long trends that are perfectly intelligible to anyone who takes the time to examine the data. We may not like Dr. Doom's advice, but we can't say he didn't warn us.

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READING LIST: This Time Is Different, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff; Fault Lines, by Raghuram Rajan; Regulating Wall Street, by Viral Acharya et al.

BEST IDEA: The continued rise of emerging-market economies.

WORST IDEA: The forecast of a V-shaped recovery for the U.S. economy.

CHINA OR INDIA? India, in the long term.

KINDLE OR IPAD? iPad.

13

BILL AND HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON for proving that you don't need to be president to act presidential.

Former president | New York

Secretary of state | Washington

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in September, Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded a confident note: "After years of war and uncertainty, people are wondering what the future holds, at home and abroad. So let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century."

Ironically, two of the people most crucial to the new global century are the Clintons themselves: the ex-president and the ex-would-be-president, the power couple now defined by their position just outside the highest reaches of power. Except that, these days, both Clintons are more influential, and more beloved, than ever. Bill's Clinton Global Initiative is starting to feel like a sexier, more effective competitor not just to Davos but to the United Nations itself, bringing world leaders together to commit …